


The Easiest 180 Of Her Life

by hariboo



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night after she buries the box she tells him she needs time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Easiest 180 Of Her Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perlaret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perlaret/gifts).



The night after she buries the box she tells him she needs time. His arms are around her and she feels as they tighten when she says the words, but she feels him nod against her neck.

It’s not a lie. 

She does need time. 

These last seven years have been seven years full of losses and not enough gains. Maybe that is unfair, Ziva thinks. It feels unfair when she thinks of their team, of Gibb’s small smiles and careful affection, of McGee’s steady friendship, of Ducky’s unconditional love, of Abby’s hugs; even of Palmer’s endless support. But she also thinks of Jenny, of Ari, of her father and so many others. It feels that ever since Jenny’s phone call, her father dispatched her, and she first stepped into the United States her life has been a bullet and it’s finally hit it’s mark. She always used to think she was bullet. She’s always been the one aiming the gun, but she was wrong. She was the target and the bullet hit her dead on. 

Maybe that is an unfair metaphor, too. 

She wishes to be something more than a tool of death. She knows well enough bullets also protect. A carefully aimed shot in a shoulder or thigh can disabilitate an assailant, but she’s been a killer more than protector. 

With so many dead around her, because of her, she can’t think of herself as protector even now. She knows Tony would argue, but he also understands. 

Gibbs taught her that, the value of protecting instead of killing. But Gibbs has always been a protector himself, so has Tony. She was trained to be something different. 

They retrained her. 

She still retains everything from who she was before, but NCIS and the team opened something bright and new in her.

Her father thought her to have grown soft since her time in America, she knows she is only stronger for it. She is kinder and warmer and better for it. He also said she was too open with her affections with them. He was not wrong there. She remembers when he first asked about Tony. She had lied then. She had not know she was lying, but he had. He had always known.

Her father was the best lie detector she knew, after Gibbs. 

Maybe if he had been there, in the room when she told Tony she couldn’t go back, he would have seen the truth. A truth she had not yet seen in herself. 

She tells Tony she needs time. 

Time to heal, time to relearn herself. Remake herself, maybe. She wants to try even if she thinks it’s impossible.

She lies to Tony. 

She lies to herself. 

Time, she learns, is the last thing she needed. 

She realises this six month later in the grove. She spends so much time between these trees now; she thinks of Tony’s smile and his hands. She thinks of his lips against hers, pressing into the curve of her neck telling her he understands, that he gets it, that he loves her. When she told him she wasn’t going back he respected her choice, he understood that there was healing she still needed to do. He also stayed with her and kissed her like it might be his last chance to touch her. 

Ziva had thought it was. 

People like her do not get happy endings, she once believed. She had believed it then, too, that day in the grove, that moment he stepped on the plane. The thought curling heavily between the grief of her father and too many memories. 

She’d been wrong. 

The sun is shining heavy in the sky when she realises this. Her top is sticking to the small of her back and she slows in her run. She can smell herself in the heat and inhales deeply. She remembers how it felt to touch his cheeks in this very same place as he whispered his pleas for her to return with him. _I’m fighting for you, Ziva,_ he had said. She had believed him for it was true. 

But she had been fighting for herself, too. 

They always fought when together, coming from two different points for the same reason. It meant that neither was the winner or both were.

When he got on that plane she’d known this loss was needed. 

Six months later she realises she doesn’t have to fight alone. She doesn’t like anymore. Maybe that had been the point he’d been trying to make. He’d fight for her _with_ her. Maybe she hadn’t been ready to listen. She’d always been stubborn. 

She walks back the house, remembering that night between them, and the days after. 

His lie to Gibbs and McGee had bought him, them, days. He still tried to convince her to go with him those days. He almost had that last time, his fingers twined with hers, his mouth pressing I love yous against her lips, into her skin. He showed she was loved, too. 

After he had left she decided she couldn’t leave the house. This house that for a brief time had been _theirs_. For the scant few days he’d been here he’d given her part of her list. I will be happy. It’d been the last item. 

And she’s ready for it. 

-

When she tells him she needs time the night before he leaves she lies. 

To both of them. 

She wasn’t aware of it at the time. 

When she is, she packs. 

He told her he would help her with her list. She had said she needed to do it alone. 

She didn’t realise that had been a lie to, because, how, she wonders, can she be happy, love and be loved without her family, without those that make her happy, those she loves. Those that love her. 

-

She knocks on the door and waits. The flight was long and she is tired. The city is cool and wet, winter is turning into spring and there is the smell of rain in the air. It was dry back in Israel. She did not pack accordingly. She doesn’t even call Israel home anymore, she realises as she knocks again. She shivers in her damp jacket, the air conditioning in the hall in front of his apartment cool, and has a moment of uncertainty. 

Maybe she is being too bold and should have called…

The door opens.

Tony stares at her like she is a ghost, and maybe she is. She does not feel like who she used to be. He breathes her name like a prayer and she catches sight of a familiar glint of silver at his throat. 

“It does not seem I needed that much time,” she says, her last words caught on a laugh as he pulls her in. He is warm and smells so familiar. She feels his lips against her temple. 

“I think six months is a hell a lot of time,” he says, tugging her inside. She drops her bag and sighs as she feel his cup her cheeks. 

Closing her eyes, she touches forehead to him. “I am sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She shakes her head, wrapping her arms tight around him. “I cannot finish my list alone.”

“I’ll help.” 

She leans up and presses her lips against him. He smells so familiar. He smells like home.

“You already are.”


End file.
